Envisioning a better world for children
The UB Post sat down with National Director at World Vision (WV) Mongolia Philip Ewert and National Coordinator for Technical Support Unit T.Enkhtsetseg to take a closer look at the country’s poverty situation and interventions to ease the situation...
The UB Post sat down with National Director at World Vision (WV) Mongolia Philip Ewert and National Coordinator for Technical Support Unit T.Enkhtsetseg to take a closer look at the country’s poverty situation and interventions to ease the situation.
Ewert has worked in over 10 countries prior to his appointment in Mongolia two years ago. Meanwhile, T.Enkhtsetseg has been with World Vision for almost 15 years, and currently, she’s heading the resilience and livelihood project.
What kinds of project is WV carrying out in Mongolia?
Ewert: WV operates in about 100 countries and it has been active here in Mongolia for 20 years. Our focus is on children, vulnerable families and communities. We’re communitybased. Currently, we’re working in 16 provinces and in Ulaanbaatar. There are four main focus areas for children, which are: child protection, resilience and livelihood, education, health, and disaster response.
Our current focus is on resilience and child protection. For instance, we have a five-year campaign to end violence against children and we’re working on programs for those who are ultra-poor so that the 30 percent of the population that fall below the poverty line can live better through different programs. But all of it is focused back on the world being friendly for children and seeing children thrive in communities.
We believe, and there’s actual research, that as children do better in communities, communities get better results as a whole. Children are also the future of Mongolia and other countries we work in.
How exactly do you plan to help children in poverty?
Ewert: In each of the areas, we have different projects. For instance, we have a water and sanitation project where we work with schools, corporations and other partners like UNICEF and local government to make sure that children have adequate sanitation facilities in their school and community. The project might involve helping schools, helping the local government build toilets in schools, and teach children to properly wash their hands and have proper hygiene.
Another program for livelihood might be to help a vulnerable family that falls below the poverty line to have the skills and resources needed to start their own business. Maybe they’ll start a sewing business so we’ll help them with maybe the initial equipment and they’ll take over and start their own business.
We have lots of different programs and our operations take a variety of forms.
Enkhtsetseg: We focus on the most vulnerable children and so we’re helping their families graduate from extreme poverty situations through a project. There are many factors causing poverty in Mongolia, including health problems, alcoholism, low income and little access to social protection services.
Many migrants from the countryside are living in ger areas because they lost all of their livestock. They have no jobs or vocation. They don’t have information about how to access primary and basic social and health services. This graduation project is very comprehensive. It includes the three main components: health, social empowerment and economic development. We also give them food vouchers and we try to link them to existing social services through the project. We have saving groups where people learn to spend their money wisely. We give grants to people willing to improve their lives by starting a business but don’t actually know how.
Life skill coaching is also very important. Our field coaches work with communities to teach essential life skills to people. This project continues for 24 months.
Is this amount of time enough?
Ewert: This is an incredibly short amount of time to release someone from generational poverty. A few years of investment can have ramification for generations to come to these families. It takes time because it’s not a simple process to learn new skills, change behavior, and look at new approaches.
How much are you investing in these projects?
Ewert: Over the past 20 years, WV invested 40 million USD in health and education. This year, our budget is around 10 million USD, which will go to these programs.
Poverty is multidimensional, and regarding issues faced by children, we believe in a holistic approach. As I said before, health, education, child protection and resilience are our main sectors.
In fact, Mongolia has made huge strides in education and health. As a country, it has grown tremendously. We’re focusing on areas that we feel most needed. Education and health have done really well for children over the past years we have been invested, so we shifted our focus on areas most in need.
Even with the large budget we have, we really believe in working with our partners, including the local government, corporations and local donors, to have a full program for children.
What have you achieved through these projects?
Enkhtsetseg: We tested a project for the first time to uplift families in poverty to sustainable livelihood. As a result of this comprehensive approach, over 600 vulnerable families graduated from marginal poverty.
Are all of your projects dedicated solely for children? Do you help adults and the disabled?
Ewert: All of our projects need to have outcomes that benefit children. We do work with adults. Helping families get out of poverty has a direct benefit on their children because they become able to provide education, health assistance, and school supplies for their children. We want everything focused back on children but there are different approaches for doing that.
We worked a lot with the 108 Child Helpline, which does specifically target children, but we’ve worked with the ministry and Family, Child and Youth Development Agency to train the helpline’s workers. Working with adults and enhancing their capacity has a direct benefit for children.
Do you face any obstacles in achieving your desired results through projects?
Ewert: There’s a variety of challenges. Some of them are environmental, such as the extreme winter which can slow progress. Last year, there was quarantine in Zuun Kharaa and no one could get in or out of the area where we worked in. Since we’re communitybased, that caused some challenges.
Frequent changes in the national government can be a challenge as we work closely with the national government. Economic debt – the highs and lows. Right now, the economy is growing at six percent but a few years ago, it was one percent and it pushed eight or nine percent of the people below the poverty line. So, the gains we achieved in the previous years were lost in some way as the economy goes through these changes and that’s a challenge for us.
Overall, communities are very receptive. I’ve never been to a country where Children’s Day is so big, for instance, and children are celebrated. This makes our job so much easier because I think parents, the government and stakeholders want to see better outcomes for their children and with that goodwill, it’s easy to talk about the world being for children. There’s a real desire. Sometimes, they don’t have the tools or resources necessary to see those outcomes and that’s when we come to come alongside to build sustainable systems, demonstrate that models like the poverty graduation approach, savings groups and home visitors have tangible impact for families, and handing it over so that it’s not just a WV program. We don’t stay in communities forever. We want to show systems and models that can be long-term and that we can hand off.
A really successful program was the sprinkles program which was providing micronutrients to families and children. Children who have diets that are based on meat and limited amount of vegetables often miss some of the key micronutrients in their meals. We gave them sprinkles that they could sprinkle on their food and meals to provide key micronutrients. Now, it’s a nationwide program that WV doesn’t run at all – the government runs it. It’s a fantastic success.
Enkhtsetseg: I’d like to add one more challenge. Most vulnerable families are very mobile. They usually move around a lot. When we are training people in livelihood skills, we need them to stay in one place because time and commitment are required to make a change. It would be very helpful for them and us if they join community groups so that they can support each other. These groups are often very open and willing to share their knowledge and experience each other. 18,000 people have joined our groups.
Ewert: Yes, a lot of our projects are based on social cohesion where community members come together in a group and support each other. There are actually huge benefits in this.
To date, how many people have you worked with, are working and plan to work with?
Enkhtsetseg: Our graduation project is one of the most powerful projects we’re working on. Mongolia's poverty is at 29.6 percent and there are extremely poor people living with less than 9.9 USD a day. WV is targeting to work with 3,000 households who are living in extreme poverty through this project.
Ewert: Over the past two years, we have worked with 68,000 vulnerable children. Every year, we work with tens of thousands of children through our programs. Right now, we’re working directly with 60,000 vulnerable children. Our target over the next three years, including this year, is 160,000
children and their families. The overall goal is to work with 685,000 children in these three years.
How did you come up with this number?
Ewert: We did a statistical baseline looking at vulnerability in the communities we work. It’s based on poverty mapping throughout the country, finding vulnerable families, working with the government to create a list of vulnerability – there’s dimensions of poverty that the government often collects – and determining how many families we can work with through our programs based on our budget.
The poverty situation is everchanging. When did you conduct this research?
Ewert: The baseline was done in January. Our strategies are usually for three years but we relook at our projects every year to see which ones are most impactful. Poverty changes often but there are some trends in poverty that last a long time and we feel like we can target.
How do you determine vulnerable children?
Ewert: There’s the poverty line -- whether they’re in school, makeup of their family, assets, and any health issue and disability are certainly a vulnerability factor. The number of children in the family can be a vulnerability factor.
Enkhtsetseg: We work with local soum and khoroo administrations to identify the poorest families. The poverty rate is similar throughout the country but it is especially high in ger areas on the outskirts of Ulaanbaatar. Most vulnerable families are headed by single mothers.
Over the past 20 years, WV has implemented numerous projects. From your experience, what should Mongolia do to fight poverty more effectively?
Ewert: I mentioned a few of our effective projects, starting from the sprinkles to the hotline to the graduation model. Our literacy program for training teachers has been effective and working in the health sector but we want to see an end to violence against children. This is along the lines of the jockey issue and corporal punishment in schools and homes.
The idea of diversifying incomes for families to make them more resilient is a good approach. Mongolia has to find a way to out of this economic cycle so that there can be a steady job market. That’s why we’re helping families start their own businesses.
The other part that I’m encouraged by and hope to see more in the future is Mongolians giving back to Mongolians and communities reaching within their communities.
We want to see more children have the best life possible, thriving in all parts of the world. We can’t do this alone so we want more people, especially Mongolians, to take the lead in this.